By Ian Long

A top film editor recently told me that he routinely removes the dialogue from the first assemblies of feature films he's working on.

He does this to see where speech can be cut and the storytelling left solely to the images.

In effect, he converts the films he's editing into silent movies.

This made me ponder the other things writers and filmmakers can learn from the earlier days of cinema. 

Later in this article we'll see how one silent drama brilliantly uses images to create its First Act Turning Point - ideas which can definitely be applied to contemporary scripts.

But in the meantime . . . where should we look for inspiration?

​Ideally, writers are interested in all kinds of stories. A varied intake of films, plays, novels, short fiction and poetry (not forgetting real life) has always been their staple diet.

But a surprising number of would-be screenwriters have a problem with older films (which can mean 'ones released before 2000'), black and white films, and silent films. Films with subtitles can also pose a challenge.

​Which is a shame. Because as well as a truckload of cultural heritage and plenty of interest and entertainment, these writers are missing out on a treasure-house of cinematic know-how. 

​Why should we watch older films?

The genres we work in stretch way back into cinema history (and, in many cases, far beyond it). This is because stories are mostly about the human experience, which hasn’t changed radically over tens of thousands of years.

Myths and folktales still provide the basis of stories, but because the narratives of films have been configured into visual forms of a certain duration, usually by very clever and talented people, they merit special study.

Film history provides a range of models for tackling subjects, and a wealth of characters, plotlines and settings to draw on, many more pointed and radical than those of contemporary cinema.

Would we have seen the pitch-black satire of journalism in 'Nightcrawler' (2014), for instance, without its (even inkier) precursor 'Ace in the Hole' (1951)?

​What stops people from appreciating older films?

Many things have changed over cinema’s century-plus existence: fashions, customs, speech and vocabulary, acting styles, special effects, approaches to cinematography and technical processes.

​But it’s worth remembering that some of our current conventions will seem alien to future generations, who'll need to make an imaginative effort to get past them.

This effort brings its own rewards. As well as enjoying a story, we get the cognitive benefits of engaging with a reality that's somewhat different to our own.

The exercise can also spur us to ask ourselves which elements of contemporary film are redundant or cliched - and perhaps look for ways to sidestep them, in order to avoid our own work seeming stilted in the coming years.

​Silent films

Many people equate silent cinema with comedy and jerky, sped-up movements (a technical issue now being addressed; people didn’t really walk like that before 1930).

But silent cinema also produced some great dramas. 

And it forced filmmakers to become adept at communicating ideas and emotions visually – still a crucial tool in the screenwriter's box.

So let’s look at the micro-beats in the First Act Turning Point from Clarence Brown's 'Flesh and the Devil', to see what they can teach us.

​Flesh and the Devil (1926)

In pre-WWI Prussia, army officer Leo (John Gilbert) falls in love with Felicitas, a mysterious woman played by Greta Garbo.

The first act tells us a lot about Leo, but very little about Felicitas.

Without fully realising it, we see her through Leo’s smitten eyes: charming, witty, beautiful, but lacking a real context - something of a fantasy-woman.

Then, along with Leo, we make the shocking discovery that she’s married to a wealthy and vengeful Count, who immediately challenges Leo to a "duel of honour".

The duel and its immediate aftermath constitute the Turning Point of the film's First Act. 

In just two minutes of screen time, director Clarence Brown and cinematographer William H. Daniels convey a lot of information with great economy and maximum emotional impact.

'Flesh and the Devil' - First Act Turning Point - Beats
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1. The duel scene has no establishing shot. We cut straight from Felicitas' boudoir, where the Count has discovered Leo, to the torso of a man whose face we never see. 

2. Two hands reach into frame, taking pistols from the man, who we now realise must be the referee of the duel.

3. The next shot gives us a sense of the location. But it's more like a diagram of a duel than a standard movie shot.

High-contrast lighting evokes early dawn. A symmetrical composition emphasises the formality of the occasion. 

The Count (on the left of the referee) and Leo (on his right) are recognisable only from their silhouettes, flanked by their seconds.

4. Leo's friend Ulrich tries to dissuade him from the duel, but Leo is resolute.

​5. The seconds withdraw from the firing area.

6. ​With the seconds out of sight, the two duellists walk away from the referee.

And in a surprising moment, they keep going until they are out of frame.

7. Only the referee is visible when he gives the signal and the duellists fire at each other from off-screen.

​​It's a very unusual way to stage a showdown. We don’t know if either man has been hit; we only see the puffs of smoke from their guns.

​9. The next shot gives us Felicitas’ face enclosed by a frame. She wears a dark hat.

10. A man’s hand comes into shot and pulls a veil from the hat, over her face. We realise that Felicitas is dressed in mourning, and is looking at herself in a mirror. 

​We deduce that her husband the Count must have been killed in the duel.

11. ​A wider shot shows Felicitas taking off the hat and veil. A smiling assistant shows her another set.

​12. Felicitas puts on the other hat and veil.

And as she does, she tries out a coquettish smile in the mirror.

What do we learn?

Leo's killing of the Count fully commits him to the story - and to Felicitas.

​Until now she has been an enigma, but her demeanour when trying on her mourning outfit tells us everything we need to know about her true character.

It’s all conveyed in a momentary expression, without a word of dialogue, and it gives us far more information about Felicitas than Leo has learned in over half an hour.

We now know that Leo has killed a man over a woman so shallow and vain that she sees her husband’s death as a fun opportunity to dress up.

It also sets up huge suspense; we are now projecting forwards in the story, wondering what will happen when Leo (if we presume he survives the duel) learns the truth about Felicitas. Will he also be subject to her lack of concern for human life?

And in conclusion . . .

No matter how hard we work on our descriptions and dialogue, we should rejoice if someone finds a way to replace a chunk of it with a glance or a gesture.

In the end, it will make us - the screenwriter - look good. Because . . .

"Show, don't tell" is the ultimate movie maxim. And the sequence outlined above is a great illustration of it. 

The narrative deliberately feeds us partial information (the faceless referee, the sketchy locale, the knowledge about who is killed in the duel, and just what is happening in the scene with Felicitas).

By doing this, it invites us to join up the dots ourselves, and achieves the ultimate goal of the filmmaker: to make the audience feel that it is taking part in the process of creating the story. 

“When the present has given up on the future, we must listen for the relics of the future in the unactivated potentials of the past.” - Mark Fisher

Deep Narrative Design
​
This article represents one small section of my DEEP NARRATIVE DESIGN workshop.

If you want to know more, or if you need help with a script, email me here.

Share your thoughts!

• Do you agree or disagree that we can/should learn from older films?
  
  
• Are you a fan of cinema from previous eras, and if so, what attracts you to it?
  
  
• Do you have any special recommendations? If so, tell us why you like them!
  
  
• Or do you have  some other thoughts?

Please let us know in the comments below!

Feedback is the lifeblood of all great writing.

​Rather than a friendly “hello”, the first utterance of the actor Errol Flynn on answering the phone was the clipped instruction “be brief.”

A Hollywood star with a host of bad habits, Flynn was a busy man. But we’re all time-poor these days, which may be why the debate over film duration kicked off by Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour Killers of the Flower Moon has had such traction.

Like people, some films need a lot of time to make a point - others, not so much.

The shortest-ever Oscar-nominated film, Adam Pesapane’s clever Fresh Guacamole (2012), lasts less than two minutes. Meanwhile, ​Gone with the Wind (1939) was four hours long and won eight Academy Awards.  

But when it comes to spec scripts (ones which haven’t been commissioned or solicited by producers), we advise writers to go for economy over length.

And here’s why.

​
1.  Think about the reader

The person who reads your script will be busy and stressed, whether they’re a well-known producer or an intern working through a pile of submissions. The reading process requires time, concentration, and emotional investment.

Readers typically check the length of a script before starting on it. If yours is well over 100 pages, they will have questions. If it's over 120, they may not read it at all.

Unfair, perhaps, but true. And this reaction will only be enhanced by such things as typos on the first page – or any page, in fact.

Making the reader's task manageable and enjoyable will immediately get them on your side. 

​2.  Shorter is cheaper

Film is a very expensive medium, and the longer a film lasts, the more it costs.

​Producers are painfully aware that every extra page of a script makes a film more expensive.

So challenge yourself to tell a great story in an economical way which gets the most out of its locations and performers and has a tight page count.

Doing this gives the reader several strong reasons to recommend your script. 

​3.  An advert for you

As well as a dramatic work, a script is effectively a proposal to set up a medium-sized business and an inventory of the elements needed to make it work.

If it goes to production, every word will be pored over by costume and set designers, location finders, illustrators, VFX specialists, composers, and everyone else required to bring it to life. So you need to give all these things a lot of thought.

Even if your script doesn’t make it to production, you can make it work as an advert for you and your abilities - a “calling card” for other writing opportunities.

And turning it in at a reasonable length is a big part of this.

Apart from its other merits, your script can show that you understand the medium you’re working in, demonstrate that you are practically-minded, and infer that you are likely to be a good colleague who is not prone to making crazed or unreasonable demands.
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A script that does all this is a better character reference than anything in your CV.

​4.  Length belongs to auteurs

People like Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan and Lars von Trier seem free to make films that run well beyond standard length.

You may have ideas to rival theirs. But before you get to realise them, you’ll probably need to prove yourself first with leaner and meaner stories.

If you do plan to broaden your canvas later in your career, honing your craft on compact material is the best possible preparation (see notes on Stanley Kubrick, below).

And arguably, Tarantino, von Trier, Nolan and Kubrick could have benefited from a little judicious cutting at times . . .

​5.  Stories have a natural tendency to run out of steam

Scripts usually exhibit problems a long time before the 120-page mark.

It's really difficult to keep up the invention within a limited scope of action, and after a certain point many stories begin to repeat themselves or strain too hard for effect.

Certain genres are particularly prone to outstay their welcome.

Thrillers and Horror stories which push beyond 100 pages often struggle to maintain the tension and suspension of disbelief which keep viewers engaged.

And even the fizziest comedies can go flat if overly protracted.

​7.  Memorable longer films have found ways to overcome these problems

A big budget can take a story into new settings, using something other than pure narrative to maintain audience interest.

It’s worth analysing how this works in longer films that you like. Perhaps the action moves to some interesting new location, like an entirely different country; or a big set-piece like a pitched battle occurs.

These episodes may take on such weight that the film’s structure could be seen as falling into more than three acts.


​8.  And what’s wrong with that?

There’s no absolute rule that films should conform to three-act structure. But there are reasons why this form is so useful for storytelling.

As more units of action are added to a narrative, it can start to feel episodic. Which means that forward momentum is lost. The story becomes repetitive and implausible.

And, ultimately, boring.

​Great shorter films don't have to do this.
​
So, to sum up . . . for all these reasons . . .

​9.   . . . it's harder to make a great long film than a great 'normal-length' film

Actually, "greatness" is a matter of opinion, so we can't really verify if the percentage of great longer films is lower than the percentage of great normal-length films. 

But it probably is.

Obviously, there's nothing at all wrong with a great, long film. Quite the opposite. Total immersion in something original, creative and entertaining is a joy.

However, even hardcore cinephiles have their physical and psychological limits.

And it has to be considered that . . .

10.   . . . Watching a bad, long film is much worse than watching a bad, shorter film

It just is. 

​11.  “But I want to make a big statement!”

A fine ambition. But longer isn’t necessarily deeper. 

Many commercially and/or artistically successful movies clock in under 90 minutes.

Here are 16 inspiring examples.

1. In just 88 minutes, Akira Kuroswa’s Rashomon (1950) showcased four differing accounts of an event, giving its name to a narrative method - "the Rashomon Effect" - which calls truth and memory into question.
   
   
2. Persona (1966) by Ingrid Bergman redefined the cinematic portrayal of identity and deep psychology in its 83-minute span.
   
   
3. The influence of Luis Bunuel’s searing 85-minute Los Olvidados (1950) can still be seen in stories of crime and deprivation like Gomorrah (2008).
   
   
4. Stanley Kubrick is known for epic length, but built his early reputation with pithy, concise films. ​The Killing (1956) created a complex narrative and a host of memorable characters in just 85 minutes, giving heist movies a new template.
   
   
5. In Paths of Glory (1957), Kubrick took 88 minutes to anatomise the follies of war.
   
   
6. High Noon (1952) told a tale of a lawman betrayed by the community he supposedly protects in 85 minutes of real-time.
   
   
7. Good comedy and animation don’t outstay their welcome. Borat (2006) is 84 minutes long.
   
   
8. This Is Spinal Tap (1984), nominated by Time Out as the funniest film of all time, lasts 82 minutes.
   
   
9. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) crams a love story, eleven songs and ground-breaking stop-motion techniques into just 76 minutes.
   
   
10. No one felt short-changed by the 81-minute runtime of Toy Story (1995).
    
    
11. Underlining how shorter durations work well for Horror, The Wicker Man (1973) casts its spell in only 87 minutes.
    
    
12. The Blair Witch Project (1999), whose income was 4,000 times its budget, lasts 81 minutes.
    
    
13. A similar runaway Horror success, Paranormal Activity (2007) is 86 minutes long.
    
    
14. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), one of the most effectively disturbing films ever made, clocks in at a mere 83 minutes.
    
    
15. The many critics who acclaimed Locke (2013) didn’t complain about its 85-minute duration.
    
    
16. Same with the well-reviewed Petite Maman (2021), which lasted 72 minutes.

​WE HAVE A BRILLIANT CONSULTANCY TEAM WAITING TO GIVE YOU FEEDBACK!

Again, we don’t say your script has to “be brief” - in Errol Flynn’s words.

But good, tight ​writing is something of a lost art. People write long-winded scripts not out of choice, but because they haven't honed the craft skills and discipline to do otherwise.

If your script is over-long, we’ll help you find the shorter, sweeter, probably much more saleable story hiding within.

If it’s too short, we’ll work with you to find the right material for expansion.

And if it’s a good length, we’ll make sure it’s polished to the highest level. 

YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT OUR AFFORDABLE FEEDBACK SERVICES HERE

Contact me via email here to find out how we can help you.

And let us know what you think about length in scripts and films below - we want to hear your opinion.

"As a controlling force in human affairs, motivation is pretty well shagged out by now. It hasn’t got what it takes to motivate people any more.” 

–  Martin Amis, Money (1984)

The 'serial killer' has become a cliché of loose thinking and bad writing. Simply invoking the phrase can be seen as sufficient to create an all-purpose, off-the-peg bogeyman capable of shading stories with a pall of ersatz evil, for which little creative or psychological investment is required.

It’s understandable that many writers are reluctant to look beyond the words to explore the reality they describe. We all are. Because if it’s horror you want, there isn’t anything much worse than someone who views other human beings as disposable material for his personal gratification, and is prepared to order his entire life to this end.

The ‘serial killer’ exists on a lower moral plain than other murder-adjacent movie archetypes like the ‘bounty hunter,’ the ‘vigilante,’ the ‘gangster,’ even the ‘hitman.’ To say something meaningful about this kind of individual – merely to provide a credible portrait of one of them – requires a descent into the darkest recesses of the psyche.

The Behavioral Science Unit

In the late 1970s, the prime movers behind the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit were prepared to make this descent, and – in lightly fictionalised form – they provide the protagonists of David Fincher’s Netflix series Mindhunter (2017-2019).

It was the BSU which actually coined the term ‘serial killer,’ providing a conceptual framework to help the group profile and track down the ‘new’ kind of murderer they’d identified – and, ideally, to prevent them from offending in the first place.

So what conclusions does Mindhunter draw about ‘serial killers’? And what hints does the series give us on how to approach them from a writing point of view?

Dirty, hazy yellow

In style and theme, Mindhunter is an elaboration of Fincher’s 2007 film Zodiac, which focused on the perpetrator of a sequence of murders over a period of years in the San Francisco Bay area (the Zodiac Killer was still active at the time in which Mindhunter is set, and his identity has never been satisfactorily established).

The series shares Zodiac’s predilection for visual fields of dirty, hazy yellow, its semi-abstract use of space, and its painstaking reconstructions of retro domestic and institutional environments – evocations so meticulous that Netflix cancelled the show’s third season because it was all just getting too expensive.

Mindhunter also harks back to Fincher’s early film Se7en (effectively his debut after the mis-step of the quickly-disowned Alien 3), the movie which put him on the cinephile map as a talent to be watched.

​But for all its state-of-the-art imagery and baroque twists, Se7en was complicit (along with the Hannibal franchise) in elevating the 'serial killer' to the status of evil genius whose intellect effortlessly dwarfs that of the cops on his trail.

Copycat killers

Se7en and Silence of the Lambs triggered a slue of cinematic copycats. Repeat murderers showed up all over the landscape of film and TV (where would Nordic Noir be without them?), each with a basket of strange obsessions, each killing according to some more or less implausible personal pattern. Untold numbers of further suspects linger in countless unproduced scripts.

But Fincher himself had sobered up considerably by the time of Zodiac. The film tracked the personal sacrifices made by a man who becomes obsessed with bringing the titular killer to justice. The barely conclusive nature of his quest is mirrored by a long, tortuous narrative that risked draining the life from its audience even as it anatomised a very real psychological situation.

​This air of gravity persists in Mindhunter, which sidesteps numerous genre tropes.

​In contrast with the lingered-over, guignol death tableaux of Se7en, the crimes are relayed to the audience either verbally, or via briefly-glimpsed crime-scene photos. We don’t get to see the gruesomeness. But we are well aware it’s there.

The Paranoid Thriller

Wilson’s words call to mind what’s now called the Paranoid Thriller subgenre. Around the time that Mindhunter is set, a cluster of outstanding films (Night Moves, Klute, Chinatown, The Conversation, The Parallax View and others) suggested that it was futile to try to understand criminal activity, political events, human motivations – perhaps reality itself.

Each film features a protagonist who tries, and fails, to get to the heart of a crucial investigation of some kind, with each (non) resolution overturning genre expectations in ways calculated to unnerve audiences (Zodiac could be seen as a late flowering of the subgenre).

Finding information

Holden’s next fortuitous meeting is with Debbie, a young woman with a contradictory nature. On the one hand she has strong ‘manic pixie dream girl’ markers, giving Holden capriciously mixed signals while introducing him to punk rock, bongs and cunnilingus.

​However, she’s also a graduate sociology student and clues him up on Emile Durkheim’s theory that “all forms of deviancy are simply a challenge to the normalised repressiveness of the state.”

​But Holden isn’t into top-down theory. He wants information straight from the horse’s mouth. So he’s excited when a contact tells him about Edmund Kemper, a man who’s recently turned himself in to the police, confessing to numerous killings. When he learns that Ed is more than happy to talk about himself, Holden just has to go and meet him. 

The horse and his mouth

Ed may be Mindhunter’s most memorable feature. A six-foot-nine slab of pallid flesh embodied by Cameron Britton in a disturbingly convincing manner (like all the killers we meet in the series), he is another bifurcated character.

The crimes he’s committed are wilfully, militantly, atrocious; but he’s able to explicate his psychology and actions in such detached, meticulous terms that he’s as much well-informed, if weirdly affectless, college lecturer as deranged slayer.

Over-excited, new to the craft of interviewing psychopaths, Holden injudiciously spills details of his relationship with Debbie to the impassive man-mountain, who’s more than capable of reversing the flow of inquiry to feel out the psychology of his interrogators. Nonetheless, Ed quickly becomes a touchstone for Holden’s nascent team.

For by now, Holden has united with FBI agent and gruff family man Bill Tench (a traditionalist, but intelligent and open to new ideas) and writer and academic Wendy Carr (cool, analytical, a corrective to Holden’s wayward leanings) to inaugurate the Behavioral Studies Unit in earnest.

​Wendy hopes that the knowledge gleaned from their extreme cases will apply to her own study of white collar, but no less psychopathic, criminals.

Initially repulsed by the idea of fraternising with the likes of Ed, Bill soon relents and joins Holden in further interviews, meanwhile struggling with the possibility that the wily narcissists they’re probing may well be manipulating them.

A new kind of killer?

Some surprises emerge from the interviews. The Son of Sam’s tales of demonic possession were probably concocted for the benefit of police, psychiatrists, and the general public. Manson may have been as much a follower as a leader: having cobbled together a litany of violent fantasies to entrance and subdue his ‘family’, Charlie had little recourse but to fall in line when they began to actually put them into practice.

But what of Wilson’s suggestion that some new kind of killer was brewed in the chaotic crucible of the American 1970s?

​Compulsive sexual murderers with grotesque résumés similar to those we see in the series had been brought to justice decades before the 1970s. Ed Gein and Albert Fish are just two examples.

But many more may never have been caught at all.

If a killer chose his targets astutely, it could have been much easier to get away with killings in the days before mass media, when large, newly-arrived transient populations, often lacking a common language, were dispersing across a vast territory, and authorities were unable or unwilling to join the dots.

And the fundamental causative factors for criminal psychopathology which the team uncovers are far from time-specific.

Backstories of neglect, abuse, rejection, ostracism for perceived ‘difference,’ sadistic parents, social deprivation, and time spent in institutions feature strongly in the early lives of the killers they profile. Sad, certainly, but unexceptional, and definitely not confined to the 1970s.

​
“Battle not with monsters”

As the series continues, however, it becomes plain that while the BSU agents are looking into the abyss, the abyss is staring squarely back at them.

Always rather introverted and humourless, Holden’s increasingly strident “ends justify the means” absolutism begins to alarm Bill and Wendy. And when the murder of an elderly woman whose investigation they’ve been reluctantly drawn into is followed by another, similar crime, his punching-the-air jubilation is truly jarring.

Yes, the case now fits their remit of repeated killings, but is this really something to celebrate?

The glacially competent Wendy marvels at one killer’s ability to “compartmentalise” his life, seemingly unaware of her repeated use of the same word to characterise her own choice of remaining a closeted Lesbian. Bill’s withdrawn adopted son Brian manifests traits similar to those of a neophyte psychopath, having participated in the killing of a baby by a group of other children.
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On top of all this, all three team members experience breakdowns in their intimate lives – having already established that dysfunctional sexual relations are one key indicator of psychopathology (Holden frequently reiterates that serial killers are incapable of living normal lives, holding down jobs, maintaining meaningful relationships).

In conclusion: writing the ‘serial killer’

Is the series saying that Holden, Bill and Wendy are in fact psychopaths? Probably not.

But it suggests that some of the qualities which make up a severely antisocial personality are shared by many more people than we may want to think.

There’s no reason why the kinds of people we’ve been discussing shouldn’t appear in fiction. After all, they represent an extreme aspect of what it is to be human.

But remember you'll need to engage with some very disturbing material if you are going to do justice to the subject and say anything new or important about it.

SOME GUIDELINES FOR WRITING IN THIS AREA

So if you are thinking about a character, bear these guidelines in mind:

1.  Be sure that this is a topic you really want to delve into on a psychological and emotional level. 

2.  Sideline the phrase ‘serial killer,’ and other, similar 'thought-terminating clichés'; look behind the words and be sure you know exactly what they mean.

3.  Establish that you have something genuinely meaningful to say on the subject, and that you know how you’re going to say it.

4.  Do serious research into the phenomenon; otherwise, you’re at risk of recycling uninteresting, potentially damaging clichés.

5.  You are depicting a human being with a personal history – not an abstract ‘incarnation of evil’ or a ‘monster’, even if their behaviour makes them seem so.

6.  Bear in mind the most chilling and provocative line in the entire series.

It comes from Edmund Kemper, in the course of Holden and Bill’s last interview with him. And it relates, among other things, to Wendy’s preoccupation with high-level psychopaths:

“Seems to me,” he says, “everything you know about serial killers has been gleaned from the ones who’ve been caught.”


About Ian Long

​I am especially interested in Thrillers, Neo Noir, Horror and Science Fiction, and I teach workshops in these genres as well as ones in 'Deep Narrative Design' and 'Creating Fear in Films'.

A dark psychological thriller called 'Stargazer' that I have co-written with director Christian Neuman is being shot this autumn.

I'm currently finishing a 'supernatural drama' set in rural Italy, and working on a number of other stories. and mentoring a number of writers on a variety of interesting projects.

If you'd like to find out more about working with me, you can contact me here.

AND PLEASE LET ME KNOW ANY THOUGHTS YOU HAVE ON THIS BLOG IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

AGREEMENT, DISAGREEMENT AND ALL OTHER REACTIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED! 

USING CHAPTER HEADINGS IN FILMS​

By Ian Long

The iron rule “show, don’t tell” is instilled into screenwriters from day one. So why do some filmmakers (Quentin Tarantino, Jane Campion and Wes Anderson, for instance) risk pulling audiences out of their stories by breaking them up with chapter headings?

Surely that’s a novelist’s trick – something just for books?

​The answer is that used creatively and judiciously, chapters can add an enormous amount to films.

So let’s see what screenwriters should know about them.

Pulling it all together – Babe (Chris Noonan, 1995)

In October’s Sight and Sound, producer George Miller told what happened when he showed the first cut of Babe to his now-wife, film editor Margaret Sixel:

“She sat and watched it and went silent. And the first thing she said was, ‘You’re not going to release it like that, are you?’ I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ She said, ‘George, it has no narrative tension. It’s episodic.’ And she was right. She said, ‘What we should do is put in chapter headings to make a virtue of its episodic nature.’”

Margaret’s suggestion seemed to work, as the quaint tale of a piglet who wants to be a sheepdog went on to make $254.1 million on a $30 million budget, and still has an approval rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Making a virtue of a necessity

Making a feature out of something you can’t hide is a well-known design concept. Ideally, the foregrounded element takes on a new life, becoming a positive asset.

But chapters are much more than a way to rescue a film with structural problems. 

Time slowing down - ANIARA (Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja, 2018)

The jaw-dropping Swedish science fiction film Aniara is set on a vast space shuttle taking people on a three-week voyage from a used-up Earth to a new home on Mars. But an accident sends the ship drifting helplessly, perhaps endlessly, into deep space.

The film is broken into chapters telling us how long the journey has lasted, and each chapter has its own subtitle.
​
The first chapter is titled “HOUR 1: ROUTINE VOYAGE.” 

The next is “WEEK 3: WITHOUT A MAP.”

Then, a sudden leap to “YEAR 3: THE YURG.”

After this, we cycle through “YEAR 4: THE CULTS,” “YEAR 5: THE CALCULATION,” and “YEAR 6: THE SPEAR.” 

Each new chapter comes as a shock as we empathise deeply with the people trapped on the ship, closely following some individual stories, and contemplate the physical and psychological impact of remorselessly passing time.

​Big jumps to “YEAR 10: THE JUBILEE” and "YEAR 24: The SARCOPHAGUS" painfully signal that the passengers will never reach their destination, and that we're watching the despair and denial of people faced with an impossible situation. 

But after this comes one of the most devastating uses of chapter design I've seen. The ship (now entirely devoid of life) comes into the orbit of a beautiful, Earth-like planet

The chapter heading reads:  "YEAR 5,981,407: LYRA CONSTELLATION."

In the few remaining moments before the film ends, we have to process the fact that the spaceship is now a relic of a long-vanished species. Almost certainly, no human beings remain anywhere in the Universe. 

After two hours of concentrating our attention on specific characters and social situations, the narrative has brushed them aside and revealed its true themes:

The absurdity of looking for "another Earth." The uniqueness and value of our own planet. The smallness of humanity in the face of space-time and the immensity of the Universe.

The film achieves its overwhelming effect by setting up a pattern and finally breaking it, exploding our understanding of the situation in a profound and moving way.

Time speeding up – THE SHINING (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

Kubrick’s film tells the story of Jack Torrance, a would-be writer who takes a job as the off-season caretaker of The Overlook, a rambling, remote upscale hotel.

Its titles start modestly enough, describing story events without reference to time:

“THE INTERVIEW” and “CLOSING DAY.”

The next title reads: “A MONTH LATER”.

As the narrative speeds up, we move through various days of the week, but in a rather odd order: “TUESDAY”, “SATURDAY”, “WEDNESDAY,” “MONDAY”.

The last few titles denote times of day: “8AM,” and “4PM”.

In some ways Kubrick is aiming for the opposite effect to Aniara, but the sum total is similarly claustrophobic. We feel as if time is collapsing as we're hurled towards some inescapable but probably appalling denouement.

We may not register the jumbled, inconsistent nature of the titles consciously, but they have a subliminally deeply unsettling effect.

Many other elements of the film share this deliberately chaotic and irrational aspect (detailed in the excellent documentary Room 237), so the design of the titles greatly boosts the film's weird, off-centre feel.

A lingering question – CONTAGION (Steven Soderbergh, 2011)

Soderbergh’s film presciently follows the course of a pandemic emanating from China. Along the way, a number of leading actors are infected with the virus and die quickly and horribly, upping both the story’s realism quotient and the audience’s fear-factor.

Teasingly, though, the film’s chaptering scheme starts with “DAY TWO” rather than the “DAY ONE” we might have expected.

It continues through DAYS 3 – 8, then moves to “DAY 12,” “DAY 14,” “DAY 18,” “DAY 21,” “DAY 26,” and “DAY 29.”

Then there is a leap to “DAY 131,” “DAY 133,” and “DAY 135.”

What is the emotional/psychological effect of all this?

The careful annotation of passing time heightens the sense that this is an account of real or potential events. It also demonstrates how quickly a disease can spread around a fully globalised world, something we now know all too well.

​By the end, though, most of the audience will probably have forgotten that they came into the story on “DAY 2.”

But when the film is almost over, we finally arrive at “DAY 1”.

A flashback sequence shows a bulldozer destroying an area of rainforest in China. A colony of bats is disturbed, one of which drops a piece of banana into a nearby farm, where a pig eats it.

The pig’s carcass is prepared in the kitchen of a Macau casino by a chef who leaves the kitchen without washing his hands to pose for a photo with a woman. And this is the person who, we now realise, brought the virus to the US.

The chaptering gives us a pattern which we may not realise has been incomplete throughout the story until the “DAY ONE” chapter heading brings this home.

Like Aniara, it's only with this final nugget of information that the story's full meaning becomes clear. 

More on Narrative Design

This article outlines just a few ways that chapters can be used. People are constantly finding new, creative ways to use them. Not all stories benefit from chaptering, though, so think carefully before using them.

Do you have thoughts on chaptering in cinema?

Maybe you can think of films that use chapters in other, interesting ways? Or perhaps you dislike chapters, and feel cinema would be better off without them?

Let us know your thoughts in the Comments!

Succession’s first episode begins with an elderly man stumbling out of bed in the middle of the night. “Where am I?” he mutters. “Where the fuck am I?”

​The light is so dim that we can hardly see the room he’s in, or anything in it. We can barely even see the man (“Where are we? A prison cell? A maze?” the script asks).

​The man is Logan Roy, owner of Waystar RoyCo, “the fifth largest global media and entertainment conglomerate in the world”. But we don’t know that yet. He could be any bewildered old man, stumbling in a fog of confusion, and we’re stumbling in the fog with him.

There’s a liquid patter, and we realise that the man is urinating. A light comes on, and we see that the floor he’s fouling is thickly carpeted. A woman in a nightgown appears behind him. “It’s okay, Logan,” she says. “It’s okay. We’re in the new place.”

Her manner suggests that she’s used to this kind of thing. She gently leads him away from the wet patch.

It’s powerful, disorientating story-telling, and suggests that the series will take a very particular approach to the craft of narrative.

Primed, I kept a lookout for further queasy moments - and outpourings of bodily fluids.

Sure enough, roughly ten minutes later, Greg Hirsch, Logan’s hapless, bumbling great-nephew, who’s working as a costumed mascot in one of the family’s theme parks, unwisely smokes a joint before donning his costume.

​He gets dizzy when a child unexpectedly begins to climbs on him, and is unable to take off his over-sized plastic cartoon head before being violently unwell.
​
Which brings forth the plaintive exclamation: “Eww! He’s puking out of his eyes!”

The opening scene forces us to lean in to the story, to try and make sense of what we’re seeing. It’s a challenge – and a statement of intent.

“If we’re going to show you something this intimate straight off the bat,” it seems to say, “you can see we won't flinch from any of this family’s deepest, darkest secrets. Wanna come along for the ride?”

After this, every painful, cringe-worthy exchange, every eruption of the human interior into the outside world, makes good on this promise, and reinforces it.

Logan’s youngest son Roman ejaculates on the window of his swanky high-rise office. His son-in-law Tom Wambsgans recounts how he has just ingested his own sperm from the mouth of a woman who’s fellated him. Logan’s other son Kendall bleeds from the nose after a lengthy cocaine binge and also defecates in his bed. Logan’s daughter, Shiv, very deliberately spits on Kendall’s notebook.

Logan himself continues to mutter darkly about his inability to control his bladder, to urinate in inappropriate places, and to suppress the urge to vomit with difficulty.

Succession’s creator Jesse Armstrong previously co-wrote Peep Show, a dark comedy which had more than its fair share of icky moments and often sailed close to ”gross-out” territory, so it’s obviously a bit of a personal signature. One American writer sees this mortification of characters as a specifically British brand of cynicism.

​But how does it refer to worldbuilding?

When you’re trying to create a globally popular long-form TV show or an open-world computer game, you need to think carefully about the world where your story takes place. Is it interesting? Is it new, fresh, original? Is it big enough to contain a story that can last for many seasons, or be played multiple times?

All stories need to create their own special worlds. It’s more obvious in fantasy-based genres like Science Fiction and Fantasy, and yes, there’s more scope – and probably more potential for things to go wrong – in these genres.

But worldbuilding is still there in seemingly ‘realistic’ forms of fiction, albeit in subtle and understated ways, and it's worth exploring exactly how this works.

In these kinds of stories, it’s all about emphasis - the things that storytellers decide to bring to the foreground, and the things they withhold.

It’s partly a genre thing

When writers are immersed in a genre, they may not think too much about its ‘rules’ – the fact that some things can happen, some things can’t happen, and some things can’t even exist in the world they’re creating.

​Perhaps they’ve internalised the rules so deeply that some psychological limiting effect kicks in which prevents transgression (although many stories might be more interesting if it didn’t - as we're seeing, Succession freely mixes a number of genres to produce its special narrative effects).

While simulating reality, stories actually give us carefully tailored versions of the world that hide at least as many things as they show, and which generally conform to our existing ideas of ‘what happens in this kind of story’.

It’s why real life can be so much stranger than fiction. Reality doesn’t need to respect genre rules, and will happily (or, in fact, obliviously) juxtapose the most incongruous things and events.

People tend not to be horribly murdered or suffer disfiguring accidents in rom coms, for instance. Protagonists rarely suffer from terminal or chronic illnesses in action-adventure yarns. Children are rarely seen in noir or neo noir movies (but tend to be very much in the foreground when it comes to horror).

There is plenty of violence in Succession, but none of it is physical - it all plays out verbally, emotionally, and in terms of this strange but marked focus on the characters' yucky and repellent side. This is clearly a conscious 'rule' governing the writing.

Horror is the genre most associated with ick, yuck, eww, and things that make us cringe, all of which come under the general heading of “the abject”. Succession isn't a horror story, but abject imagery is written into it at a deep level. 

By delving into the abject, horror wants to remind us of the things that we ignore, reject and cover up just to get through the day and fit into civilised society.

​The rot, refuse, fluids and effluents which are inseparable from our lives as embodied beings, but which we don’t want to think about, if we can help it, mainly because they remind us of our mortality. 

​So why does Succession have such a big yuck factor?

One author singles out humiliation as the show’s core emotion, and it's true that the threat of it (usually at Logan’s hands) marbles the Roy family’s luxurious life like veins of mould in a blue cheese.

Outbreaks of the abject tend to confer humiliation on those responsible, and some characters (Roman, Tom, Kendall), are so damaged that they seem to hunger for further degradation.

Even more than humiliation, though, this story is themed around, predicated on, obsessed with, one central issue.

And that is death.

Specifically, the death of Logan Roy, without which no ‘succession’, no handing over of power, is possible. 

The story's theme is written into that initial image of a bewildered old man in steep decline, out of control, regressing towards something worse than infancy.

​Logan Roy's physicality dominates the entire story-world of Succession. His health, or lack of it, sets its temperature and determines the lives of all the other characters. Everyone is minutely attentive to its nuances, and utterly dependent on its whims.  

Sometimes they want Logan to die, or disappear into senescence. Sometimes, when they see they aren't capable of replacing him, they need him to be strong (when a urinary tract infection briefly floors him during an important negotiation, they are completely thrown - even as they jeer at him for being "piss-mad").

But however quickly Logan Roy bounces back from his mini-stroke, however tough, and decisive he can still appear, however able he remains to taunt and wound his children, he is within touching distance of death, and moving closer to it all the time.
​
It's the issue that ties everything in the series together. All the lesser instances of loss of control echo and reflect the fact of death, and Jesse Armstrong has bravely and brilliantly built the world of Succession to reveal this reality in all its squeamish detail. ​

Lessons and takeaways

There are many worldbuilding lessons to be learned from Succession. But one of the most important, overturning the cliched advice to "write about what you know", is "how to write about what you DON'T know”.

Because who really knows what it’s like to be part of a family of billionaires which runs a global media conglomerate? Certainly not the team responsible for writing Succession.

Armstrong assembled a talented and diverse writers’ room for the project. They did an enormous amount of research, they discussed, elaborated and rejected ideas and plotlines, they used “wealth advisers” to fill them in on the mysterious ways of the super-wealthy – the 0.003%.

But mostly they relied on the writer’s most precious resources – empathy and imagination.

By Deola Folarin

1]  PAINTING WITH WORDS:

My first tip is as much for producers and script editors who are working with screenwriters who have dyslexia and other learning difficulties, as for the scriptwriters themselves. It is important to understand that dyslexic screenwriters think differently and that their approach to scriptwriting may be unusual. Yes, at times they don't catch onto what is easily grasped by most people, but they often think more than others in terms of visual and aural imagery. And cinema is a visual and aural art! And I believe others with dyslexia tend to think of screenwriting as painting with words and dialogue as cinematic poetry. Scriptwriting for writers with disabilities is not all 'Temple of Doom' and gloom: Spielberg was dyslexic! And it is believed that Stanley Kubrick had Asperger's Syndrome. Both are accomplished screenwriters as well as directors.

Because of my dyslexia, I never wanted to write. I came to writing as a frustrated director who wanted to get my own ideas down into a script that I could direct.

Now I really enjoy creating scripts, especially after I doing an M.A. in screenwriting. However, even today I have terrible problems with the 2 page-outlines that sell one's work. The logical progression, the correct grammar, and spelling demanded by these documents can be a minefield when you have a learning difficulty. 

However, they can and should reflect a dyslexic person's strengths. Use all those stunning visuals that you see and stories that you hear every day to help producers and funders quickly grasp the filmic life in your storylines, incidents, characters, visuals.


2]  THE STORY/PLOT NECKLACE

Here is where a dyslexic disadvantage becomes a firm plus. Dyslexic brains often make interesting connections and see the world differently as well as more visually. So search the internet, newspapers, and magazine for those diamonds in the rough. These are the beads you can put on that string of a plot. You might find a fantastic true story but you cannot get the rights or the first half is great but the second half is dull. That's, of course, the moment where creativity comes in - taking nuggets from life and stringing them together in creative ways. And dyslexics are often particularly creative - easily seeing original connections - for example, by way of unique angles e.g. point of view, sequences, etc. - that others find more difficult. Look at any great Spielberg or Kubrick film: JAWS, SCHINDLER'S LIST, FULL METAL JACKET, THE SHINING, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. 

And of course, study all the great examples of original story/plotlines whether from life, novels, biographies, or wherever; whoever created them, disabled or neurotypical. Since one of a dyslexic's strengths is combining things in a unique way, it is important to study films that do this. E.g. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (I am not aware of a gay cowboy movie before this), JOHNNY MAD DOG, (essentially LORD OF THE FLIES but so originally set with boy soldiers in an African civil war zone). LIFE OF PI (You can't get much more unique than the story of a boy on a lifeboat in the ocean stuck with a tiger!) COP LAND( where a partially deaf sheriff defends his town from corrupt cops and the mafia). Or finally, MURDER BALL, (a feature documentary about disabled wheelchair basketball players).

Okay, you've thought of your unique, original, fascinating story but how do you tell it to others in two pages and a few rather formal paragraphs. I suggest taking a blank sheet of paper, drawing ten or so squares [ or circles] big enough for you to write one sentence in each. These are your beads. Then write one sentence in the first about the action/story that happens at the beginning of the film. Draw an arrow to the next box and continue to create the story necklace until you get to the end of your movie plot. I often start at the end. I like to know my climax and where I am going and then I go back to the beginning of the plot/story.

This diagram is a very simple way of having a visual sketch of your story in front of you.

If you do this on a large piece of paper then you can stick pictures that make comments on each story block next to it. This is hugely helpful when you are creating characters or setting the mood of the story/sequence.













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​3] THREE DIMENSIONAL CHARACTERS:

The best book I have read on creating characters, making them striking and three-dimensional is LINDA SEGER's CREATING UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTERS. Buy it and devour it. It is brilliant and helped me hugely.

There is nothing worse than an incredible story and pacey plot but with cardboard cut-outs for characters. Yes, it is difficult in a 2 pager not to have wooden characters since you don't have the visual poetry of dialogue in an outline but you can hint at the protagonist or antagonist's speech or unique mannerisms in your descriptions. Make your main characters unusual and stand out individually from the page. Your minor characters can be more stock. Remember we want to watch interesting people that hold our attention or ordinary people in interesting situations. No reader wants to read a 2 pager with dull characters. Strong characters will make your outline stand out. Shine!

Make a scrapbook that you can fill with interesting people whose stories fascinate you.

Create a list of questions that you would ask your character if you could speak to them. Become one of the actors in the story and interview yourself and other characters. This will really help you to make the characters more three-dimensional. 

Watch and study films with amazing characters in them: e.g. Melvin Udall in AS GOOD AS IT GETS, Mildred in THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, Hannibal Lector in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, Russell Stevens in DEEP COVER, Brandon Treena in BOYS DON'T CRY, Alonzo in TRAINING DAY. Travis Bickle in TAXI DRIVER. Ask yourself how could you have treated these characters in a 2-pager.

Now you are ready to try your two-pager. Even on its two pages, don't forget to paint with your words and create aural images. Arrestingly!


4] GET YOUR WORK CHECKED:

This is an obvious point but probably even the most important for us dyslexics and those who have other learning difficulties. This will help you make sure your work is clear, well-written, and engaging. This is vital as a reader for a funder, a film company, or competition will have hundreds of 2-pagers to get through. You don't want your nuggets to get buried in bad punctuation and inept grammar that is distracting for a reader. You want the reader to keep focused and excited. 

Make sure you get your work checked by a script editor, tutor, or another writer with strong editing, grammar awareness, and correction skills.

If you have no access to anyone, do not despair there are proofreading services online, like grammarly.com or https://kindlepreneur.com/best-proofreading-service/ or https://www.writersservices.com/editorial-services/proof-reading-service/. There are also fonts which are more readable for dyslexic readers such as Dyslexie and Open Dyslexic.

Although Euroscript is not a proofreading service they have amazing script feedback services and courses at Euroscript. 

Have fun painting with words and creating cinematic poetry. Carpe Diem!

By Alizée Musson

In the pre-internet age, filmmakers’ options for getting a foot in the door were limited to writing spec scripts and shooting short films for the festival circuit. Back then, reaching an audience was impossible without convincing the industry’s gatekeepers first. Nowadays, in the world of Web 2.0, reaching a worldwide audience is only a click away. Through their web series’, the following three projects gathered enough momentum to launch their creators’ big break.

So, what can we learn from these success stories that may inspire you to jump on the web series bandwagon?

The internet loves cats; it’s a well-known fact. Back in 2008, Simon Tofield, an animator, decided to teach himself computer animation by making a short film. Inspired by one of his four cats, Hugh, the film focused on a cat trying to get his owner’s attention in the morning. A simple idea that carried Tofield far. Without knowing it at the time, someone copied the film from his showreel and uploaded it to YouTube. By the time he realised, the video had captivated more than cat lovers around the world. Seeing the video’s popularity, Tofield decided to launch a YouTube channel to tell more of his buddies’ daily adventures -  Simon’s Cat was born!

​Hundreds of episodes have been made since, viewed around 1 billion times on a YouTube channel with 5.5M followers. From working alone behind his computer, Tofield became a director leading a team of animators. Simon’s Cat became so viral that in 2009, a book adaptation was announced and went on to sell internationally.

​From then on, the web series and his feline protagonist evolved into various formats: in 2012, Simon’s Cat comic strips ran in The Daily Mirror; in 2016, Simon’s Cat partnered with Sesame Street; and in 2018 the game Simon’s Cat Dash came out. 

Tofield’s experience is a perfect example of how sharing your work on a platform such as YouTube could be a great way to test a concept – even one you haven’t thought of yet.

In 2018, rapper and filmmaker Andrew Onwubolu (a.k.a. Rapman) released the three-part web series Shiro’s Story on YouTube: the story of a father who must dive deep into the London gang world to get his daughter back; all told through freestyle rap. Inspired by a real-life story from the South London neighbourhood of Lewisham, where Rapman grew up, the film was shot “guerilla-style” with a small cast and crew. The trilogy was an instant hit, gathering millions of views within the first hours of being released.

Shiro’s Story didn’t just garner a wide audience, it also caught the attention of producers and broadcasters. Thanks to this web series, Rapman moved on to more significant projects. In 2020, he released a crime drama feature film, Blue Story, based on another YouTube series of the same name that he had released in 2014. The film was co-produced by Paramount Pictures and BBC Films and was short-listed for the BAFTAS. The web series’ success also led Rapman to get a representation deal with the entertainment agency Roc Nation.

The success of Shiro’s Story is definite proof that you don’t need fancy gear and a big budget to create a hit – all you need is a good story.

People Just Do Nothing follows the lives of MC Grindah, DJ Beats and his friends running a radio station called Kurupt FM, broadcasting drum and bass music from Brentford, London. Created by Allan Mustafa, Steve Stamp, Asim Chaudhry and Hugo Chegwi, this mockumentary sitcom was first released on YouTube in 2011 as five webisodes, accumulating around 380K views. Among the audience was producer Jon Petrie who worked with a former producer of The Office, Ash Atalla. Seeing potential in the idea, Atalla arranged to produce a pilot episode for BBC3’s Comedy Feeds in 2012. BBC3 liked the concept and decided to pick up the series. Its first season was released in 2014 and ran for five seasons until 2018.

In 2017 the show won a BAFTA award and a Royal Television Society award for Best Scripted Comedy. Although it is now over, the creators have been working on a feature film adaptation due to be released in August 2021: People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan. The series’ success has also opened many doors for the creators: Allan Mustafa, Asim Chaudry and Hugo Chegwin have since respectively appeared in films and TV series, including Netflix’s Love Wedding Repeat, Wonder Woman 1984 and The Announcement, and Steve Stamp continues to write for TV, including the TV movie Peacock.

While this web series did not gather millions of views, its concept stood out enough to get picked up by a significant broadcaster. You don’t need many episodes. All you need is a strong story to get noticed. 

THE FIVE PILLARS OF FEEDBACK
 
 
WHY
Every time I write something, I make the same mistake. “I’ve been a writer for a long time,” I think, “and finally, I know enough to write the final draft first.” I get to work, and produce my masterpiece. As a formality, I give it to a reader for feedback, expecting them to tell me it’s perfect. Instead, I receive an analysis of my work, pinpointing its weaknesses, and suggesting ways to improve it, all of which are suddenly obvious. “Of course!” I think. “Now, why didn’t I see all that?” 

The simple answer is that a reader of your work has a big advantage over you. It’s not that they’re smarter than you, or a better writer, it’s simply that they’re not you. No matter how objective we like to think we are about our work, we’re too invested to see it clearly. We need help.
 
WHO
Some people turn to their friends for feedback. Here’s a basic rule: if you want honest feedback on your work from your friends, you must be prepared to change one of two things – your work, or your friends. 

Exchanging feedback with a fellow writer may be a better option, and if you can form a mutually beneficial partnership with one, go for it. Writing groups can be better still, and some aspiring writers are surprised by how supportive they can be – but you’re all in the same boat, and what would be the point of trashing another writer’s work? 

Best of all, though, is getting feedback from an industry professional, whose only agenda is to help you do the best work you can. Why? Mainly because you’ll be paying them, and it’s in their interest to give you good value and useful feedback.
 
HOW
Don’t take feedback personally. If that seems like a surprising thing to say about your writing, which may feel like the most personal thing you’ve ever done, remember: it’s your work that’s being assessed, not you as a person. A good reader will be trying to help you move your work forward, and the process is a collaboration, not a lecture.

So, be positive. Treat every note you get as an opportunity to improve what you’re writing. If a reader highlights a weakness, don’t think of it as an error you need to correct; see it as a challenge: determine to not only fix what’s wrong, but to make it even better. I call this approach, “I’ll see you, and raise you,” and it can be exhilarating to see just how far you can take a reader’s note, and use it as the catalyst for transformation.
 
WHAT KIND
In general, there are two types of feedback: written, or in-person. You may find yourself in a position where the choice isn’t up to you; if, for example, a producer wants written "coverage" of your script in the form of a report that adheres to an industry template. But if you have a choice, think about what’s most useful to you. Written feedback gives you a formal assessment of your work by a reader, and the strengths and weaknesses of the draft you submitted to them. It provides a useful document that you can refer to when you’re writing your next draft. It can also be shown to other people (e.g., a producer, as mentioned).

Verbal feedback in person provides a more relaxed forum in which you can discuss your work and ideas with a script editor or consultant. It can be a very useful development tool, allowing you to think things through as you talk, and get a sense of where you should be going with your next draft. Cleary, both formats have their advantages, and if you have the choice, imagine what would help you most. You may find that you want to follow up a written assessment with a subsequent in-person conversation (with the reader who wrote the report, or a differ editor) or vice-versa.
 
WHEN
The best moment to get feedback is before you write anything. But in the absence of a time machine, get feedback when you’ve made your work as good as you can. The exception might be if you’re developing something with someone who’s monitoring your progress, but in general, wait until you’ve written what you think is your best draft. The reader’s job is to help you write a better one.

FOR DETAILS OF EUROSCRIPT'S FEEDBACK SERVICES CLICK HERE

As inspiration for the 4-evening workshop that starts on Thursday 7pm.

Only TWO places remaining!

Some of the most memorable films are set in just one or two locations. The self-imposed contained setting forces the writer to rely on character development to build tension and, as such, are excellent case studies in minimalism.

Here are eight of the best contained screenplays ever written that only take place in one (or a few) settings.

Some like EXAM produced for $600K remained true to their indie origins, some like PHONE BOOTH were studio films, others like BURIED, originally designed to be filmed on a micro-budget transcended their humble origins when a star became attached.

Regardless of their pathway these scripts all became successful films and are worth a read!

MARGIN CALL - On the eve of the 2008 financial meltdown a few hedge fund traders discover what is about to happen and have 24 hours to save themselves from the impending collapse.

PHONE BOOTH - A publicist finds himself trapped inside a phone booth, held captive by a sniper.

Funnily enough, Hitchcock originally wanted to make the movie in the late 60s but felt he couldn't do the concept justice from a technical standpoint.

THE INVITATION- A man accepts an invitation to a strange dinner party organised by his ex-wife which soon takes a turn for the worst.

BURIED - A truck driver in Iraq wakes up to discover he's been buried alive inside a coffin with only a lighter and a phone. ,

LOCKE - Set in a car over one night it tells the story of a construction engineer who must make the biggest decision of his life.

PANIC ROOM - A divorced woman and her diabetic daughter take refuge in their house's safe room when three criminals break in.

HARD CANDY - A teenager locks up a photographer inside his own house to force him to confess he abducts underage girls.

EXAM - Eight candidates for a desirable yet mysterious job are locked together in an exam room and given a final test.

All these scripts are a good reminder that personal conflict, emotion, flawed protagonists can be gripping no matter how limited the scope and setting of your script.

Give your protagonist a strong, universal goal and you have all the ingredients you need to write to write a compelling screenplay.

If you are interested in exploring your own idea and characters for a contained movie "Write the Contained Feature Film" starts on Thursday and there are only TWO PLACES left. Just like in the movies the more contained the workshop the better the experience in the Zoom world and, as such, places are limited!


4 x Thursday evening sessions:
February 25, March 4, 11, 18
7pm-9pm

Online workshop


Standard price: £198
Concession: £180
​

THERE IS POWER IN GROUP BRAINSTORMING

THEY PROVIDE A MUCH NEEDED SUPPORT SYSTEM

As a screenwriter, it’s easy to get stuck in your bubble and that’s not the ideal environment to turn an idea into a screenplay and keep the momentum going or to develop a screenplay once it's written. That’s why I love workshop environments, both as a writer and a tutor. I fell in love with writers workshops when I was a student at UCLA in Los Angeles, and I still find them invaluable. I love focus groups because they allow you to test your ideas at an early stage, and develop them before embarking on the journey of writing the actual script. They can also offer a bouncing board when you start doubting your idea, which inevitably happens no matter how experienced you are as a screenwriter and how many scripts you’ve written. There always comes a time when you start finding your idea silly, glib or too familiar and you have to push yourself to keep going. That’s when it’s great to have fellow writers who have your back and keep your on your toes. They keep you accountable, help you stick to deadlines, and ensure you remain focused on your end goal. 

But there are other perks too to being part of writers workshops:



FIXING ISSUES BECOME EASIER

By suggesting how to fix things on your peers’ stories you become more relaxed about improving your own script because you know that there is always a solution, even if it can feel like a frustrating and meandering process at times. Some stories are harder to crack than others but you come to appreciate that you aren’t alone, that the creative process is a struggle for most people most of the time. Thomas Mann said, “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people”. And boy, was he right but the shared struggle is what makes the breakthroughs all the more amazing to be be privy to because it reminds us that even when we feel stuck in our writing there is always a way forward.


PATTERNS EMERGE ORGANICALLY

I am a big believer in identifying PATTERNS when seeking notes. I like receiving more than one set of notes on a draft of a treatment or script to ensure it’s not just one person’s idea or own subjective opinion but a general problem with the story. I look into what readers keep saying over and over, which often indicates it’s an objective issue. For example, when more than one person tells you that you could combine two characters or they don’t buy an event, which happens a lot. What I love about workshops is that patterns become obvious during the feedback discussions. And, conversely, workshops make it easier to get a sense of what people are actually like, what they get excited about, which is crucial to understand because at times we are tempted to get rid of what actually works because it has lost the initial shine of novelty to us.



YOU FIND YOUR TRIBE

Finally, an upside of writing workshops is that they allow writers to find kindred spirits. And I have occasions where I ended up swapping scripts with another writer I met at a workshop. Most people aren’t surrounded by creative kinds in their day-to-day life and building a tribe is essential to fuel one’s creativity.

There is power in group brainstorming. A book I recommend on the subject is “CREATIVITY, INC: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration”. It was written by Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and president of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation who shares his extensive experience working with teams of writers and directors around a table.



If you feel that the workshopping experience is something that would be beneficial to your writing I have two online workshops coming up in the next couple of weeks: ​